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The Edge of the Cloud by K.M. Peyton

The Edge of the Cloud by K.M. Peyton is the second book in the Flambards series. Though regarded as a series of pony stories The Edge of the Cloud is markedly different to the other three volumes as it has only one riding scene in it. What it is in fact is a wonderful historical novel with a little romance and a lot of flying, set just prior to WWI.

The previous novel, Flambards, ended with cousins Will and Christina eloping after the hunt ball and The Edge of the Cloud begins immediately, the same night, as they arrive in London at their aunt's house. Told from Christina's perspective the bulk of the book is really about Will and his attempts first to get a job with his beloved aircraft, then to fly again and to save the money to get his damaged leg fixed so it will bend into cockpits. When that small matter is resolved, Will wants to design and build his own plane.

Christina is on the sidelines for this but her own life is interesting too. Much to her aunt's dismay she decides to get a job and trains as a hotel receptionist. She does other 'fast' things such as staying all night at the airfield (as the only woman) to help with the planes. Though she rebels against her aunt's social conservatism she is still very much subordinate to Will who treats her very casually. She is, as she says, always second to his first love, flying.

The book is a very satisfying read. The general thrust of the plot is not particularly engrossing but there are plenty of exciting episodes. Peyton also shows just how well she can write. Her descriptions of these early experiments in flying are wonderful. Christina is terrified of flying but feels that she must always appear never to mind either Will's exploits, dangerous through they are, nor her own trips into the sky. Crossing the channel was the ultimate test of her nerve:

The sea, as they came inevitably closer, resolved itself into waves and troughs. The metallic similes were lost in the reality of the stuff. There was nothing fanciful  in its nature at close quarters. Christina looked over the side, down over the wings, and saw the restless, desultory heaving of the grey waves. There was no comfort there; they were heedless of her feelings, grey vultures slip-slapping in an endless, pointless dance up and down the Channel. She looked at the back of Will's head, and pictured him disappearing under the grey waves, and the hot tears welled up inside her goggles so that she could no longer see. Better not to see, she thought, sniffing numbly, better never to think ... 'Dear Aunt Grace, We are over the sea ... Dear Aunt Grace, The sea is over us ...'

Will being a man of few words when it comes to their relationship, the oil-splattered scrap of paper saying, 'I love you', which comes during the above flight is the nearest Christina gets to romance.

In the end, I think this has become my favourite of the series, something which I wasn't anticipating. I like the development of their relationship, which whilst not very egalitarian, is also quite real. I also like the group of friends that they gather round them: gentle pilot Sandy and the exciting Dorothy.

Watch points:

Peril: there are lots of heart in mouth moments with the flying. Especially when they take up stunt and exhibition flying. I suspect these scare adults (with a more advanced sense of anticipation) than they do children however!

Death: pilots die flying these early planes. One significant character dies and characters (one nice, one nasty) from the previous book also die. The reactions to death are very well done: the shock and horror at an accident; the casual indifference to the death of a brutal and bullying parent. They may require some talking through, especially with the young end of our age group.

Relationships: Will is more likely to touch his plane than Christina, but there are discussions of what it is Christina may or may not do (like stay out all night at the airfield), of what is 'proper', which requires a bit of understanding of the facts of life, and some understanding of the social conservatism before the war.

Overall: a lovely historical novel. Plenty of excitement, but rather episodically so. Some of the other books in the series, especially the last one Flambards Divided, have some significantly more adult themes, so you might need to bear that in mind when introducing younger readers to this book.

Other reviews and useful sites:

You can read my review of the first novel Flambards here.

K. M. Peyton has her own website and there is a nice piece on her in The Guardian.

There is an excellent review of Flambards on academic Rohan Maitzen's site here, and one of the Flambards series on the blog  A Thing With Feathers.

I bought my copies of the quartet from the lovely Jane of Jane Badger Books who is a national treasure when it comes to pony books. Jane's K.M. Peyton page is here. Jane has a history of the English pony story coming out this month, Heroines on Horseback.

A TV adaption was made of the first three books and is available on DVD

Keeper by Mal Peet

Keeper by Mal Peet is a remarkable book and one unlike any other that I've read for this age and ability group. It combines a demanding and imaginative storyline with the kind of sophisticated writing more usually seen in the more literary novels for adults. Yet the themes of father figures, landscape and identity, ambition, and personal fulfillment, played out through the medium of football are such that there are no major social concerns for a reader of any age in our group. It is the perfect G&T book in that sense.

Paul Faustino is South America's top sports journalist and the novel begins as he sits down in his office with the goalkeeper known as El Gato, the cat,who has been part of the un-named team that has just won the world cup. Faustino is expecting a fairly ordinary tale of the keeper's poverty-striken childhood as the son of a poor logger in the jungle, and a typical rise through the ranks of players to the national team. What he gets stuns not only Faustino but also us, the readers, for Keeper is magic realism for kids.

Not always El Gato, as a child the keeper thought he was no good at football, he was known as La Cigüeña, or the stork. Gato's village was in a forest clearing and he was warned off the forest by his superstious grandmother but once the other kids banned him from playing he wandered off alone. There, as he says, he didn't find so much what he wanted, as it found him. He meets the mysterious ethreal Keeper, a ghostly, shamanic figure who appears only in one place (apart from one incident later in the book), an immaculate and unlikely football pitch away from any of the forest paths. And the Keeper and his teaching changes La Cigüeña into El Gato. It is football, but it is the psychology of football, the myth and mystery of football, not Roy of the Rovers.

Magic realism, the presentation of the fantastical as though it is real usually without explanation, and often to make a political point, has drawn some very impressive practioners to its style ranks over the years, Angela Carter, Toni Morrison and Salman Rushdie to name but three, and it, appropriately for this novel,  can be very strongly considered as Latin American, as writers such as Alejo Carpentier, Gabriel García Márquez etc, show. In taking this Latin American style along side the South American setting Peet is echoing the work of Louis de Bernières whose South American novels are also in the magic realism tradition. In this then , as in so many other ways, Keeper is such a grown-up book.

Magic Realism for children is a slightly odd idea as they, nutured on fairy tales, may see nothing odd in  the presentation of the fabulous along side the real. The execrable Rainbow Fairies series for younger girls (very pink, very glittery, very predicatable, very poverty striken in imaginative terms) places two ordinary girls Kirsty and Rachel who do ordinary things in situations where they interact with a parallel fairyland. Similarly, the children in Enid Blyton's Faraway Tree series live with mother and do chores before interacting with magic in the forest not unlike our goalkeeping hero does in Keeper. Yet no one would makes claims for Rainbow Fairies or  The Faraway Tree to be magic realism.

What lifts Keeper further than mere fairy tale is clever and complex. The narration for a start utilises adults. Faustino, who like us is a narratee receiving the main narration, is clearly an adult, probably someway into middle age. A brave move for a children's book. The second narrator within the text is El Gato himself and whilst he is a younger man, he is undoubtedly also an adult. In fact for a children's book there are remarkably few children or teenagers in it. Our child reader's point of interest is that our hero is just 12 or so when the story begins, when our adult keeper starts his recollections, so their empathy is heavily directed towards the main character as he lives his life and strives to find out who he really is. But El Gato is already an adult and we know he has won the world cup, so this is clearly not a linear story (again, how grown-up). We're obviously not meant to wonder about that outcome, we're meat to listen to the rustling political sub-texts of the plot. The fanastical Keeper is shown to us through the eyes of adults, to emphasis the strangeness, the magicalness, of the acceptance of this reality. When magic doesn't go just because you're grown-up, then it is truly Magic, and a magic beyond mere football.

So what is it about if not football? Well football (and there is a lot of brilliantly described football, described from within the head not by the feet nor the roar of the crowd) certainly forms the centre of the book, but about it spin the themes. How does Gato interact with the men of his family, what of his mother's hopes for him, and what of the forest that his father and the other loggers do daily battle with? And here's the politics: its an eco-tale of rainforest destruction. Of the power of the forest to inspire and destroy, and of human greed and need for nothing to stand in the way of progress. Of what sort of men we should make into heroes, and of what heroes really do. Play for Real Madrid or right social wrongs? Is El Gato a shaman? What have the forest and the spirits taught him?

I've stated all that very baldly, but the narrative is very subtle. Whilst Gato's decisions become clear in the last pages there is no sense in which the main omniscient narrator preaches: in fact we are shown throughout that what we don't understand is often more important than what we do.

This book is not just for football fans, it is not just for boys, and it is not just for children or teenagers. I loved this book, and I know it will be one I'll re-read. Keeper is the first of three books by Peet featuring Paul Faustino.

Watch points:

Death: Gato's father dies, knocked into a ditch by a tree where he drowns in the mud. This is described at the end of the book, and though Gato is clearly disturbed by the death, it is not over-played within the text. The mysterious Keeper is not a shaman but part of the spirit world, and why becomes clear at the end of the book.

Violence: a jealous colleague has Gato followed by men with knives at one point, but otherwise there is nothing worse than what you see on Match of the Day.

Peril: the fear of the unknown, the slightly spooky nature of the forest and fear of failure are all present. Nothing the average 9+ couldn't handle.

Religion: this is very spiritual and mystical book throughout : this is the element in which it swims. There is no overt religiousity however.

Anything else: Paul Faustino smokes (which seems appropriate somehow, it is how an old fashioned journalist should look). There is a long description of a big cat hunting - related to the football.

Overall: A truly grown-up, remarkable book that both entertains and demands your respect for the writer on every page. Entirely suitable for 9+ but feels like a work for adults. Wonderful, sensitive, tactful, tasteful, imaginative, sophisticated and elegant throughout. One of my books of the decade.

Other reviews and useful sites:

The author's own site is here.

There is a review in The Guardian here by Jan Mark which argues for a Fisher King/Arthurian view of the book, a review on Kirkus here, and an interview in The Telegraph here.

There is a review by a 12 year old by on BBC Norfolk's page here. (Peet is from Norfolk).

There is a blog review on Persnicketysnark here.

The Salt-Stained Book by Julia Jones

The Salt-Stained Book by Julia Jones, the first in the Strong Winds Trilogy, is a wonderful mixture of social realism and sailing novel. It's sort of Swallows and Amazons meets Tracy Beaker. I first came across it on Geranium Cat's children's book blog Hurleyburlybuss and I'm very glad I decided to read it.

Teenager Donnie Walker's family is unusual: he lived with his grandmother and his disabled mother Skye until his grandmother's recent death. Skye is deaf and autistic and Donny communicates with her through sign language. Knowing social services will think that he and Skye can't cope on their own Donny makes sure his grandmother's last letter, to her estranged sister in China, is posted. Great Aunt Ellen is their only hope. After a cryptic telegram from Ellen arranging to meet in Shotley, Donny and Skye set off to make the journey down to Essex from Yorkshire. They don't quite make it before they're ambushed by social services after Skye goes into meltdown in an Essex car park.

Now Donny is fighting for his, and his mother's, freedom. With Skye locked up in a mental health unit and stuck in a vicarage with well meaning but distant foster parents and their dysfunctional foster family Donny must find a way to make the rendezvous with his great aunt. Social services and the police are behaving oddly and seem to have a greater interest in his aunt than makes sense, especially as they claim not to believe she exists.

Overlaying the gritty realism of life in care is Donny's burgeoning romance with water. His grandmother had always kept him and Skye away from water; there has been no swimming or sailing in his youth, but from the moment he gets his hands on Swallows and Amazons Donny is obsessed. At school he falls in with the determined Ribiero sisters and with the help of their family he learns to sail.

In the end the water seems his only hope of meeting his great aunt, and like John in Swallows and Amazons a brave night sail seems his only chance.

The main thrust of the plot would be exciting enough but the story is bookended with a prologue and then a final explanation of the deaths of two sailing brothers during WWII. The loose threads caused by this and the rather strange behaviour of a police officer named Flint and Donny's social worker suggest the adventure has only just started and buying yourself the second book in the trilogy suddenly becomes very necessary!

The parallels with Swallows and Amazons, and with Treasure Island, are obvious throughout but unlike S&A  The Salt-Stained Book has action from the first. If you hadn't read those classics you can still follow the plot, but you'll obviously get so much more out of the book if you have. Spotting the characters is fun, and the word play is clever: Maggi and Peggy both being pet names for versions of Margaret, for example, emphasising how the Ribiero sisters so clearly parallel the Blacketts.

I was not totally convinced by some of the teenage dialogue, especially at the start, but not so that it spoiled the book. The plot, charactisation and inter-textually make for a fascinating novel. Donny engages you right away and you will him to succeed. The women in the novel are all fascinating, and all very different, from his remembered grandmother to the dreamer Skye, to the Ribiero sisters, to strange Anna in his foster home, to the mysterious Great Aunt Ellen.

The book is almost self-published, in that Golden Duck is the publishing vehicle of the author and her partner, but she is an established writer with several other books to her name, and is, amongst other things, an expert on Margery Allingham and her family.

The book, physically, is far from self published, indeed the production values could teach mainstream publishers a  thing or two. The cover is by Claudia Myatt and there are vignettes throughout in the style of older children's paperbacks. The design is excellent (with a named designer, Roger Davies, on the colophon) and there are interesting extras such as a diagram with parts of a dingy, and details of the fingerspelling alphabet used by the deaf.

All-in-all there is charm and excitement on every page.

Watch points:

Peril: this is much tenser book than Swallows and Amazons, and Donny's dramatic sail to meet his aunt is quite scary, but not worse than, say, Treasure Island. The scariest thing, I think, is Donny's uncertain future and the fact his mother is locked up, rather than the physical problems. There are the briefly referred to dangers of being in the navy in WWII.

Violence: there is a rather brutal interview with the police officer and odd social worker.

Death: Donny's grandmother dies, just before the book starts, which is the catalyst for the events of the book. The seamen in the WWII flashbacks die, one in an apparent suicide. Donny's grandmother's death is handled well as the imaginative Skye has some lovely ways to say goodbye which Donny recalls.

Relationships: friendships, and parenting (both good and bad) are covered but not romantic relationships. Donny's parentage, and indeed Skye's, is in question, so some basic knowledge of the facts of life are assumed. The other children in the foster family are from a badly broken family, with different dads.

Religion: the foster mother is a vicar, and the portrait is not a flattering one!

Anything else: the foster family is dysfunctional in itself, as well as the problems that the children come from. There is a suggestion of Chinese gangs/smuggling with the implied violence/drugs etc. This is not over played. The politically correct blinkers on social services and the foster family get them into real trouble, and mean the foster kids can manipulate them. There is of course lots of sea and boat related language which may challenge.

Overall: this is an exciting book in its own right, with the added bonus of its relationships with Treasure Island and Swallows and Amazons. Autism, deafness, and non-traditional families are all dealt with sensitivity. The very middle-class Ribiero family with their kindness, intelligence, education, culture and money are black and make for a very positive portrayal. Unlike social services the Ribiero parents treat all the children as people with their own talents, attributes and needs. For those who have read Swallows and Amazons, the Ribieros are Mother and Uncle Jim at their best! The WWII flashbacks and some revelations at the end of the book mean that much more is to come in the next installments: A Ravelled Flag and Ghosting Home. A lovely book, making a great start to an intriguing series: highly recommended.

Other reviews and useful sites:

The author's website is here.

There an article in The Telegraph here and a review in The Guardian here.

There is a review by Amanda Craig here and another from The Nancy Blackett trust here.

There is a review on Hurlyburlybus here.

I have reviewed both Swallows and Amazons and Treasure Island  for this blog too.